Vittorio Gassman

Known for ActingBorn 1922-09-01Died 2000-06-29Genoa, Liguria, Italy

Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [vitˈtɔːrjo ˈɡazman]; born Gassmann; 1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000), popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements. Gassman's debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's La Nemica (theatre). He then moved to Rome and acted at the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a team that remained famous for some time; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to sophisticated intellectual theatre. In 1946, he made his film debut in Preludio d'amore, while only one year later he appeared in five films. In 1948 he played in Riso amaro. It was with Luchino Visconti's company that Gassman achieved his mature successes, together with Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli and Paola Borboni. He played Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Un tram che si chiama desiderio (A Streetcar Named Desire), as well as in Come vi piace (As You Like It) by Shakespeare and Oreste (by Vittorio Alfieri). He joined the Teatro Nazionale with Tommaso Salvini, Massimo Girotti, Arnoldo Foà to create a successful Peer Gynt (by Henrik Ibsen). With Luigi Squarzina in 1952 he co-founded and co-directed the Teatro d'Arte Italiano, producing the first complete version of Hamlet in Italy, followed by rare works such as Seneca's Thyestes and Aeschylus's The Persians. In cinema, he worked frequently both in Italy and abroad. He met and fell in love with American actress Shelley Winters while she was touring Europe with fiancé Farley Granger. When Winters was forced to return to Hollywood to fulfill contractual obligations, he followed her there and married her. With his natural charisma and his fluency in English he scored a number of roles in Hollywood, including Rhapsody with Elizabeth Taylor and The Glass Wall before returning to Italy and the theatre. On 29 June 2000, Gassman died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Rome at the age of 77. He was buried at Campo Verano. Description above from the Wikipedia article Vittorio Gassman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on WikipediaRead more

Movies & web series

Desert of Fire

Il turno

E il Casanova di Fellini?

We Are Cinema

Close Up

L'ebreo errante

Incontro con Laura

Spécial cinéma

Sono Gassman! - Vittorio re della commedia

Once a Year, Every Year

L'altro enigma

Defend My Love

Il leone di Amalfi

Daniele Cortis

Desert of Fire

Apostrophes

We All Loved Each Other So Much

Deneuve, la reine Catherine

Abraham

Il Sorpasso

Le Grand Échiquier

The Great War

Big Deal on Madonna Street

A Difficult Life

Sleepers

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

For Love and Gold

Amleto

The Family

Scent of a Woman

Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained

The Captain's Daughter

The Eye of the Needle

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

March on Rome

I Knew Her Well

Without Family

Adolfo Celi, a Man for Two Worlds

Let's Have a Riot

Abraham

Luchino Visconti

Trintignant by Trintignant

Bitter Rice

The Monsters

The Terrace

La Tosca

Quando eravamo repressi

The Dinner